


ain't no hell like the hell I raise

by Addison R (beyond_belief)



Category: Daybreakers (2009)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Addison%20R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-movie, Edward's turning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't no hell like the hell I raise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Argyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/gifts).



_Security alert. Back door ajar_ , the flat, female voice intones as Frank steps into the house. He's got a key, but his alarm code hadn't worked. Edward must have changed it. He waits, but the house remains silent, and Edward doesn't shuffle out of his bedroom half-awake. He still sleeps at night, even though the world has changed, and the things people used to do in daylight are now the things they do only under the cover of darkness.

Frank slings his rucksack down onto the floor. He's got a bottle of 80% pure rolled up in a t-shirt inside, and he digs it out and stashes it in Edward's refrigerator for later. Then he goes down the hall to Edward's bedroom. The door is open, because Ed is apparently not only still human, but still stupidly trusting. Frank walks in and sits down on the bed.

Edward twitches, once, twice, and then bolts upright with a gasp. It's pitch black in the room. Frank can see fine, but he knows Edward's seeing nothing but darkness.

“Relax,” Frank says, “relax.”

“Frankie? That you?” Even ask he's asking it, Edward is moving back, away from Frank, and getting out of the opposite side of the bed. The sheets seem to rustle loudly.

Ed's blinking rapidly. Frank can tell his eyes are adjusting.

“It's me,” he says after a pause.

“Where have you been all these months? And why are you here now?” There's a rattling noise as he knocks his hand into the base of the lamp before reaching the switch. Then the room is flooded with light. “Frankie?”

“You changed the alarm code.”

Edward nods, shoving a hand through his messy hair. There are circles under his eyes.

Frank stands up. He’s here for a reason, after all. “You can't run from it any longer, Eddie.”

“No,” Edward says firmly, shaking his head. “No. I won't do it. I won't turn.”

“Soon you won't have a choice.” He takes a step toward his brother, slipping his hands in his pockets so as to appear nonthreatening. “I joined up in February, that's why I haven't been around. The first training course was six weeks, the second twelve. Then there were the missions.”

“What missions?”

“They've got us rounding up the human homeless,” he says, choosing honesty versus some fiction that Edward would likely see right through. “Putting them into harvesting programs.”

The look on Edward's face is pure disgust, an unmistakable tightening of his muscles. Like he's unconsciously recoiling from Frank's words, or maybe Frank himself. “Eddie -”

“No, Frankie.”

“They're not gonna stop with just the homeless and the criminals.”

“I'd rather die,” Edward says flatly. But his eyes are wide and his breathing is faster, more shallow. He's afraid. He's afraid of Frank. And there's something so wrong about that – Edward's his older brother; he's always been the stronger one, the smarter one, the one who makes the right decisions.

Except for this.

Frank's always been the fuck-up. Their mother used to look at him with disappointment in her eyes, every time he came through the door high as a kite, or when the cops drove him home because he was so drunk he couldn't find his way, or when she had to post bond because he'd hit a guy over the head with a Chimay bottle in a barfight.

Frank takes another step toward him, but still with his hands in his pockets. “You will die. Don't you realize that? The fact that you're a doctor researching the outbreak is what's keeping you... safe right now. The vampire population is 70% and rising without pause.”

“Don't you think I know that?” Edward snaps.

Frank would be lying if he said he couldn't smell the flush rising on Edward's face, dull red and angry. His thirst flares. He hasn't fed yet today, and normally a human giving off the fear scent is a human he's about to feed on and change.

Maybe, hopefully, that's not so far from the truth here.

“Eddie,” he says quietly. “How many humans are left in your department?”

Bromley Marks used to be a pharmaceuticals company. Frank remembers that before the outbreak, Edward was working in the unit that did insulin medications. Now, all the scientists work on the same few things. All projects have to do with the outbreak - or with blood.

Edward glances away, up into a corner of the room, then back up at him. “Four.”

“Out of how many?”

“Twenty-seven.” He rubs his face with his hands.

“How much longer are you going to hold out?” Frank pulls his hands from his pockets and gestures widely. “You have to know that your human life is reaching the end. Time's running out.”

He pauses for a moment, then adds, “Doesn't the idea of no sickness and no disease appeal to you, as a doctor?”

“This is a sickness!” Edward shouts, his voice thick with rage, and shoves Frank backwards with a mighty push, sending him sprawling onto the bed.

“Ed...”

Edward drops to his knees on the floor, puts his hands on Frank's own knees. He takes a deep breath, like he's going to try and lay it all out, as calmly as he can. “It's all wrong, Frankie. It was a horrible thing, what happened. Nature's cruel joke. Maybe the cruelest of all. But people should be able to choose, and not be judged for it, or forced to change against their will.”

He's so close. Frank can see the pulse beating in his neck. His palms are warm and Frank can feel his body heat, even with a ruler's length between them. He could lunge now, and have his teeth in his brother's neck before Ed can even blink, much less recoil. Part of him wants to. Edward could never fight him off.

Frank remembers watching vampire movies as a kid – characters had always been consumed by bloodlust after they'd been turned. _It will pass_ , the parent vampires – their makers – had always told them, _you must learn to control it_.

Only for the first wave had it been like that, and in frankly uncivilized places.

Frank reaches out and puts his hand on Edward's shoulder, then slides it up his neck, over that throbbing pulse – it's faster now – and cups his jaw, curling his fingers into the dip under Edward's ear. He pulls, but gently. Edward doesn't resist. “Cmon, Eddie,” Frank whispers. “Wouldn't you rather it be me?”

Then he strikes.

As his teeth pierce flesh and vein, Edward shouts and tries to buck him off, but Frank's got one of Ed's arms bent behind his back, and there's no place for Ed to move but into him as Frank takes more and more of his blood, hot and alive on his tongue.

And then he stops.

“No,” Edward moans. It's his last word. He's no longer struggling, a limp, bloody mess spread out across Frank's chest. The venom is fast spreading through him. Frank touches his fingers to the dripping wound. He can feel the exact moment that Edward's heart stops, and the exact moment that Edward dies.

Frank holds him through the change.

When Edward opens his eyes again, bright and pale at the same time, Frank says, “C'mon,” and helps him to stand. Gently, he strips the bloody clothes from Edward's cooling skin and then presses fresh things into his hands. “C'mon, get dressed, and then we'll make a toast. To the new you.”

Wordlessly, Edward pulls on the clothes and follows him into the kitchen. Frank takes the bottle of 80% , fills two tumblers with ice, and pours. Edward looks at it in disgust. Frank nudges the glass toward him. “You're not going to regret this, trust me. Drink it, Eddie.”

“This is the end of the world as we know it, Frankie,” Edward says. He stares at the blood for a long time before he raises the tumbler to his lips. He swallows with a grimace.

Frankie tips his glass in Ed's direction, trying not to smile. Through the blood, the ice clinks. “And aren’t we feeling fine?”


End file.
